Top evangelist resigns over gay sex claims

Mike Jones (l) says he had a three-year relationship as a gay escort with the Rev Ted Haggard, the founder of the New Life church in Colorado Springs. Photographs: AP

The Republican party today was assessing the potential political fallout from a sex scandal that has forced one of America's most influential evangelical Christians to resign.

The Rev Ted Haggard, who is married with five children, stepped down yesterday as head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and as senior pastor of the New Life church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, after being accused of paying for sex with a male escort.

He has denied the accusation, but said in a statement on the New Life church website that he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations ... I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance".

Named by Time Magazine as among the "25 most influential evangelicals in America", Mr Haggard reportedly talks regularly with President George Bush or his advisors. He was credited with encouraging Christians to vote for Mr Bush in his 2004 re-election.

For the Republicans, who are fighting to retain control of Congress in next Tuesday's midterm vote, Mr Haggard's resignation is at the very least an unwelcome distraction.

The pastor supported a proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution, that will be on next week's ballot, defining marriage as between a man and a woman, a "wedge issue" with which the Republicans hope to galvanise their supporters.

Voters in Colorado and seven other states are to vote on proposals banning gay marriage next week. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships, providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.

After the state of Massachusetts legalised gay marriage in 2004, Mr Haggard and others began organising state-by-state opposition. Last year, he and other Christians announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Mr Haggard said that he believed marriage was a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and cited research saying it was the best family unit for children.

The allegations against Mr Haggard surfaced this week when Mike Jones, 49, told a Denver radio station that the pastor paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. Mr Jones also said Mr Haggard snorted the drug methamphetamine before their sexual encounters, to heighten his experience.

Mr Jones, who says he is gay, told the Associated Press he decided to go public because he was upset when he discovered Mr Haggard and the New Life church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," Mr Jones said, adding that he was not working for any political group.

Mr Haggard has also taken to the airwaves to reject the accusations.

"I've never had a gay relationship with anyone," he said this week. "I'm steady with my wife. I'm faithful to my wife."

"Homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures," the evangelicals' association says on its website. It claims the Bible says homosexuality is a sin that "brings grave consequences in this life and excludes one from the Kingdom of God".

Jerry Falwell, a prominent conservative Christian and Republican party loyalist, sought to play down Mr Haggard's importance.

"He (Haggard) doesn't really lead the (evangelical) movement. ... He is the president of an association that is very loosely knit and I've never been a member of it," Mr Falwell told CNN.